Ce que lire fait au voyage. Lapérouse au Kamtchatka (1787)

• Main Author: Nathalie VUILLEMIN
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; French
• Published: Université Clermont Auvergne 2020
• Subjects: lapérouse; cook; kamtchatka; intertextuality; mimesis; ricoeur; staging of real characters; lecture; political strategy; Literature (General); PN1-6790; Kamchatka
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/81a589e22be54b3ea8252ae9bbab1dd1

This article tries to propose a new analyse of the problem of intertextuality in travel literature, examining a specific passage of Lapérouse’s “Voyage”: the stopover in Kamchatka. Literally haunted by Cook, Lapérouse sometimes seems to confuse real space with the space of the story, making a strange attempt to “re-stage” the characters his predecessor had met. We propose here a re-reading of this episode in the light of the "triple mimesis" system developed by Paul Ricoeur. We’ll try to measure the effect of the travel narrative on reality. Lapérouse, re-writing Cook, performs a literary as well as a political gesture.